She Will Be the Death of Me
by unkeptsecret
Summary: The lethal ladies of Roanapur, as told by those bastards who are lucky enough to know them. Vignettes with a theme.
1. Bao, on Revy

_**Bao, on Revy**_

Why do I keep letting Two Hands in my bar?

That's the stupidest question I've ever heard, and this city ain't a brain trust, that's for sure. Tell me this, asshole: how am I gonna keep her out?

Hey now! Don't get mad. Don't even start that shit with me. I ain't gonna spare your feelings just 'cause you're a customer. You bought a drink. You got your drink. End of fucking transaction. If you want service with a smile, go upstairs and pay Flora's girls a visit. Me? I don't deal in good feelings, except the kind you get from the bottle.

You want another? Sure, gimme a second.

No, no, I get what you're saying. I do. She starts trouble. She's nothing _but _trouble. If I had a bad luck charm, her name would be Rebecca Lee. The Yellow Flag burns, and she's got something to do with it every time. She'll be the death of me, that's for sure. Yeah, I know.

And I know what you're probably thinking. You think I got the hots for her. I admit, she ain't hard to look at. Beautiful, even. Crazy eyes like a bitch from hell, but beautiful. Ever seen her do her thing? No? Well, if you can get a front row seat to that show without taking a bullet or twelve for your troubles, do it. That shit will end up in your dreams _and_ your nightmares. Beautiful, sure. But pretty don't cut it with me.

See, it's like this. When Revy comes around, she sits right there, right at the bar. Who's gonna step up here and fuck with me when Two Hands is right fucking there? Every now and then, some dipshit from outta town tries to start with me when Rev's in one of her moods, and I gotta hire a goddamn cleaner for him _and_ his idiot friends after she makes a mess out of their sorry asses. Cleaners cost, sure, but it still saves me big. I ain't gotta waste anything on bouncers that no one in this city will respect with that bitch as my regular.

She saves me big in other ways. Yeah, I'm still talking about Revy. Jesus, can't you handle what you order or what? Keep up here. You wanted to talk.

So back to what I was saying. She saves me big time. I don't pay tribute to none of them Four Heads. Not any little head either. Nothing. Nada. And that's a fucking miracle around here. Time was I worked four days outta seven to pay for "protection". Hell of an overhead, right?

It happened like this: Some Ivans show up one day, Rev's at the bar, and they shake me down. I knew it was coming. Had my dues all ready. They leave with the cash right around the time that Revy orders another bottle, but I ain't got one. It was a bad time around here, back when things weren't all nice with Mr. Chang and Ms. Balalaika. I couldn't make both the money to the Ivans and the cost of re-stocking my bar right then.

I tell this to Revy, and she straight up flips her shit.

I'm like, easy there, crazy lady. If I do good here tonight, I'll reorder tomorrow. Have it in by day after. No worries.

But she flips harder. Like it's the end of the fucking world. Two whole fucking days without a bottle of Bacardi and it's end times nigh to her.

So I'm like, don't blame me, sweetheart. I don't make the rules here. You want to take it up with someone, have a chat with the Ivan Ice Queen.

And she's all, maybe I will.

Then she's out. I don't think of it. She's back two days later for her bottle, all smiles like.

Next week, same deal. I'm getting the money ready, Revy's drinking at the bar, Ivans due any minute. Any minute at all. 'Cept the minutes keep ticking on by. Hour. Two hours. No Ivans. Revy drinking and smiling that psycho killer smile at me.

Finally, I says to her, "What did you do?"

She looks me right in the eye and says, "Fixed it so when I want a bottle, you got no excuse but to give me a fuckin' bottle."

HA!

How did she do it? Oh, hell if I know. But she did. That crazy bitch.

So that's the long story. Revy. Me. This place. She'll be the death of me, but it could be worse, right?

Another drink? Sure, sure. Here ya go. Enjoy.

* * *

_A/N:Yes, I am aware this isn't that good. I'm getting my ass kicked by postpartum depression. Therapist recommended writing. Ta da. I just wish I could sustain a thought long enough to tell an actual story. Le sigh. _


	2. Rico, on Eda

_**Rico, on Eda**_

Forgive me, Mother. I do not wish to interrupt your vespers, but I must speak with you in private.

Mother Yolanda, you must tell me: who is Sister Eda?

Please don't misunderstand me, Mother. I know who she is to us. Our sister in Christ. Our best gun here at the Church. I do not question our faith in her. But Mother, Sister Eda is more than that, isn't she?

No, Mother. Please do not dismiss me so easily. I would not speak without some proof.

When you were sick with the fever, Mother, do you remember? Some men came to meet with you, but you could not rise from your bed. God heals but in His time, not ours. The men did not understand this, though I tried to explain in four languages. They wanted to speak with you immediately. No excuses or my blood would be their price.

Just when I thought I would be hurried away to touch the face of God that day, Sister Eda interrupted. But she was not our Eda. She was... how can I explain? Not the smiling Eda we know with pink glasses, bubblegum and whiskey on her breath. Eyes like the darkness. Iron in her bones. Cold. Vicious. She frightened me so.

She said that she was you, and the men believed her. Why wouldn't they? Your reputation is known, Mother Yolanda. If I did not know you, I would have believed that she was... well... They went with her to the other room to speak. But before she left, she looked back at me with something in her face. Like she would be the death of me if I said a word about it.

Mother Yolanda, those men were appeased. I know not what was said. There was no trouble of it, which is why I did not say anything to you sooner. But her eyes, Mother. I see them in my dreams. And now when I look at Sister Eda, her face is like a mask to me. I know what lies beneath.

So Mother, tell me. Please. Sister Eda... who is she?

* * *

_A/N: I have two more chapters in progress, so expect more, just don't expect much, 'kay? _


	3. Chang, on Balalaika

_**Chang, on Balalaika**_

She did what?

Christ.

Of course, she burned it to the ground. She's like a crazy cat lady, only she keeps a bunch of Ivans instead of kittens. One of her pets goes missing, and she's going to light up the night until he comes home. Probably burned the whole block to the ground looking for him. She did, didn't she? Yeah, that's what I thought. You know, Biu, I'm beginning to hate being right about her. That woman is going to be the death of me.

That's not funny, Biu. She'll be the death of you, too.

No, now is not the time to plan any assassinations. Not only would that bad move only serve to accelerate the curtain call on this hellhole, it's bad for business. Let me say that again because I know you are not a fan of hers: Balalaika is good for us. Sounds crazy, I know, but I didn't get to the top floor by thinking like a street punk. It's not about who controls more territory or smuggling routes. It's not us versus them. This is about money and making more of it.

Sit down. Here's a lesson for you. Like attracts like. You see it everywhere. An entire street dedicated to jewelry shops. Garment districts. A whole magic mile of upper-end shops. Or bigger concepts, like Silicon Valley and all of the world's best glass producers in Venice, way back when. Doesn't seem right that having so much of the same thing crammed together should work. Seems like the competition would blow everybody out of business, right?

But it works.

Look at it this way: say you need a large order of glass or jewelry or t-shirts. You want to shop around for the best deal, check out a bunch a different suppliers. Wouldn't it be handy for you if all of those suppliers were hanging out together? Of course. The same sort of business concentrated together builds its own gravity. Like attracts like. More customers coming, slightly different needs. More room for iterations of the same business. More money to be made all around.

You get enough of that gravity, and whole support system redirects and changes. Transportation, communication, infrastructure: it all falls into the orbit of that gravity. A talent pool forms. The more, the merrier. Everybody making money.

Roanapur's product is crime. This whole fucking city has transformed to be better at selling crime than any other place on the planet. If it were just us, we would do well enough. Good location near shipping routes, a crossroads of the black market. But we are more attractive to customers when we share this place with other organizations. . More factions paying off the authorities. More hands to shield what we do from the eyes of the international police. A bunch of high-end freelancers just hanging around, waiting for a job. If you don't want to believe me, fine. Go check the ledgers. Since '94, everything is up. Revenue. Profitability. Your fucking paycheck. My reputation.

And if Roanapur is going to be the crime capital of the world, we could do worse than share it with the likes of Balalaika. Hell, we still do worse. Remember how the Italians brought in those creepy killer kids? Yeah. Balalaika doesn't play her hand that way. She deals straight. No manipulations. No petty power plays. She is too proud to be treacherous and too smart to throw her weight around for show. She's ruthless and brazen and showy, but she is also disciplined and strategic and unpretentious. Don't underestimate how rare a woman like that is.

Well, any more of that and I'm going to sound like a kid with a crush.

I'll get to the point. This is the long way of saying, yes, Balalaika is a crazy bitch who will raze a city block when one of her men misses a check-in, but she's a _valuable_ crazy bitch. Even when that city block happened to contain the condo of Roanapur's chief of police.

Just my luck, right?

Okay.

Here is how we play it.

Watsup is the easy part. He's a simple man. We offer up the waterfront house, rent-free. It's on the best golf course in the city. He will love it. Maybe cater a house-warming party for the whole crooked police force, just to make extra-nice.

Balalaika is a little harder. Torching buildings over a single man is a tad excessive, even for her, but it's been so quiet here for the past month that I'm not exactly surprised. A woman like her needs a challenge, so we give her a challenge. We get someone to tip off those annoying pirates working out of Phuket about Hotel Moscow's upcoming charter through their area. A subtle tip-off, mind you. Make them work for it. People put more value into what doesn't come easy. Once they add up two and two, they will jump on the opportunity. Naturally, Fry Face will launch a revenge attack, and she will make sure that those sea scumbags are nothing but chum. Once she has had her chance to blow off steam, she will come around and handle the rest of the clean-up. She'll take charge of her own mess, eventually.

And that's how we kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes. No more pirates around to harass us on that route and no more bored Balalaika.

At least, until next month.

* * *

_A/N: If you were expecting some hot B/C action from me, you would have good reason, but I'm fresh out of romance at the moment. Next up is Rock and Revy. After that, I'm looking for inspiration. Consider this an open call for requests. I'll do my best to fulfill them, at least until my brain reboots and I'm able to write long form stories again. _


	4. Rock, on Revy

_**Rock, On Revy**_

Here I am, again, drinkdrank_drunk_. (Bottle up. Bottle down.) Alone.

Because if she knew what I do when I come here alone, what I do to atone for the lies and still keep them true. If she knew... If she knew...

Lie One

That I can drink her down, shot for shot, and drag her home. Japanese man magic. Do you want to see the trick? I can take what I do because, up here in my room, I'm practicing. (Up. _Down_.) Because on the nights I say I'm down early sleeping, I'm up here, keeping that game new with a bottle and my soliloquies. She hasn't caught on yet, my Revy.

Lie Two

That I don't know about the thing everyone sees, the her and the me. I know. I know I'm a star in her forever-yard stare, that she'll shrug it off but kiss back if I dared. But I can't take her hands when each one has a gun, and if she reached back to me, then Two Hands would be...One? Heh. _Done_.

I can't have her as is; the taking would break her. And, selfish as I am, would I still want the pieces? So maybe if I think long enough (_To be or not be_...) she will stitch up her mind and make it for me. But the waiting is hard to keep without this bottle. (_Up_.)

Lie Three

That I don't know about me because I do. I _know_. I say that I'm saving when I'm taking. Garcia's bright face. Yuriko. Gretel in her bloody lace. Roanapur makes them lost and I make them lose. I say there's no choice while I'm making them choose. A gamble. My game. I'm playing. They're played. And Chang's cutting laughter along on the line. A villain, he says. I don't deny. I come at them sideways- a real winner. Where's my prize?

With Revy, she's all front. You look and see that she's killing you, killing me, with that razor-edge simplicity. (So fucking _beautiful_.)

So don't think I'm better than her. I'm the worst.

Lie Four

That I'm here because I want to be. Stockholm Syndrome victim me. The truth? I can't leave. This city claimed me long before Revy renamed me. So you can't grieve the loss of man who was never quite here. I blacked out my heart long before fate could steer my body over the slipknot bridge. Back in Japan, I could sleep standing. Now, my dark is too demanding. Can't muzzle that part of me needs lives on the line. (Of course not mine, but yours is fine.) I can't go back to straight streets and all that clean machine with Roanapur under my skin.

I know, I know.

(_Down_.)

Lie Five

That I know any fucking thing.


	5. Dutch, on Balalaika

You're taking this in a strange direction.

So, where should I start?

This could take awhile...

Hmph.

You want to start from the beginning, and the beginning is way on back. Hang on to your chair, Rock.

Before Balalaika touched down in Roanapur, there was Ivan the Terrible. Maybe that name brings up the mental image of a tall ass man with a face like mountain side, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He was a small guy. Mean. Greedy. He came from old school Russia where people talk about equality, but the guys in the Party get the cream and the milk and whey, everything. The rest? They get the trash. It's all about control when you get right down to it. There's no strength for rebellion when you are hungry and broken down. Ivan brought that taste of the homeland all the way to this asshole of a city.

Christ, this is going to take forever if I keep explaining it this way. Here's the picture worth a thousand words; under Ivan the Terrible, most of the men in Roanapur's branch of Hotel Moscow had scurvy because he doled out nothing but instant noodles for food. I'm pretty sure his nickname started at the clinics where the docs treated all of those poor bastards. Even here, that shit's fucked up.

But there's another Polaroid that you need. Imagine the heads of the crime syndicates sitting down together for a meeting and then pin that picture to the wall and have Revy use it as target practice. Back then, there was no cooperation, no playing nice, none of that. Only Chang ruling this city and the rest of the syndicates bickering with bullets over the scraps. And if there was a meeting, Ivan wouldn't have a seat at that table. On the power ladder, Hotel Moscow had a nice comfy hold on the bottom rung. Ivan the Terrible was a joke any way you wanted to look at him. Got so bad that every Russian was just Ivan in Roanapur. It was another word for white-skinned loser.

Different times, then.

Well, the main branch back in the Motherland must have gotten fed up with Ivan's shit or maybe they wanted a quick way to get rid of a major blonde problem. Can't say for sure, myself. All I know is that one day, she shows up, all military glory and iron-spine salutes. Balalaika herself, in uniform.

You see that woman and a couple dozen of her men all dressed in military gear now, and yeah, that's as close as any of us will ever get to see the Reaper in the flesh. But in this city? Back then? She was an even bigger joke than dumb fuck Ivan. Chang probably laughed himself a new hernia over her. If he had known then what he knows now, I doubt he would have played his hand the way that he did, but things being what they were, he did nothing to mark Balalaika's arrival in the city other than leave it alone. He gave that woman both the time and the space to set up her brand of Hotel Moscow out of sheer ignorance.

Balalaika didn't waste that opportunity. First things first, she dealt out Ivan. I wasn't there, but the rumors say it went down like this: all of the Russians get called up to some empty shithole on the far end of town. They hang out for a bit, sweating and starving, until the main act. Spotlight on Ivan the Terrible strapped to a chair, dripping like the fat pig he was. Balalaika comes out from the shadows and starts running it like a fucking military tribunal. She reads off the list of his crimes- accepting bribes, behavior unbecoming an officer, and that sort way on down the line. She gives voice to all of his offenses, just puts all of it out there. His greed. His treatment of the men. The shame he brought on them all. And on and on. By the time she runs out of crimes, the men are ready to tear their old leader into confetti with their bare hands, but Balalaika isn't done. She puts a loaded revolver on the table in front of him, says "Comrade, your choice is clear", unties the guy, and I'll be damned if he doesn't put the bullet into his own mean, little brain.

Cue the applause. Crowd goes wild.

Balalaika holds up her hand for silence and then proceeds to eulogize the fucker. Our fallen comrade who lost his way, may he rest in peace. Let us drink to remember him as he was before this dishonor. And for her next trick, she pulls back the curtains and it's a damn funeral feast. Vodka flowing like water, and Balalaika moving among the masses to pour every man a glassful like fucking Wealhtheow and everybody's a goddamn hero.

So things change overnight. The Russians go from sickly Ivan jokers to loyal Berserkers with a hard-on for glory and a heartful of absolute loyalty for their new leader. With her men locked into kill mode, Balalaika does what she does best: tactics. Move fast, move hard, show no mercy.

Chang is slow on the response because the turtle caught the hare napping. Hubris is a motherfucker like that. The new and improved Hotel Moscow damn near bulldozed over the city in a major power grab before Chang could get his pants on. Still, pride is a hell of a thing.

Here is where the story gets interesting.

Chang doesn't fight back, not really. It looked like he was at the time. Throwing up some blockades and rushing out to make a stand here and there, and getting his ass handed to him at every encounter. At least, that's how it seemed. Chang's no dope on the tactics either. He had ruled the city for so long without much to call competition that everyone forgot. Including me. Yeah, I fell for losing act, too.

And if Balalaika was a joke to Chang when she landed, then Chang was a special kind punchline to Balalaika. He stayed up on the penthouse floor of the Triad high-rise entertaining the latest starlet from Hong Kong and sending out a bunch of suits to get mowed down by her men while she commanded each and every operation in person. A real dichotomy there. She thought he was a yellow version of Ivan, just some gutless loser who happened to get a first class ticket on the money train through greed and good connections.

A couple weeks of fighting it out, and the city is looking damn worse for wear. Chang sends word to Balalaika that he wants to negotiate. Roanapur is too critical to the Triad drug trade to get wiped off the map, but it's also a legit city. They could shield the women and children from the battles for so long, but it was only a matter of time before the civilian population took a hit, started to panic or, worse, began a full-on exodus, and then everyone's cover would get blown to bits by the Thai army.

Not sure how he gets her to agree, but she does. Meeting is set on the docks. Chang requests formal wear, asks what kind of wine she wants. Of course, Balalaika sees nothing but fat cat ego in it all.

The only reason that I know that part is that she told it to me herself when she came to hire Black Lagoon to play a bit part in the bloody end of Boss Chang. I was supposed to collect Chang's body after that meeting and haul it up to the next major Triad base in Ho Chi Minh City. She never intended to negotiate.

But I shouldn't have to tell you that things didn't go down like that.

The meeting happened, and Balalaika made the same mistake as Chang did. Hubris. She underestimated him, saw herself as too much of a badass and looked down at him as nothing more than a pale politician. He got the drop on her.

Damn, this story is dragging. Let's wrap it up.

Two monsters showed up to a meeting. Both take a couple bullets because each thinks too little of the other. Cue laugh track.

Instead of doing the job I was hired to do, I fished an unlikely mermaid out of the harbor, and the real negotiations happened with both of those beasts hooked up to IVs and pissed as hell because the lesser sharks and various bottom dwellers had smelled the blood in the water and were circling in for the easy kill.

And that's how Black Lagoon got on the Nice list with Ms. Balalaika. That's the favor. Want to know the real funny part, Rock? I wouldn't have helped her if I had known that Boss Chang had survived that encounter. I had all my chips on that woman. Yeah, hubris bit me in the ass but good. I got real lucky in how it all played out. Well, luck and some fucking hard diplomatic shit.

But that story is not going to do you any good with the boy and the maids, is it?

Here's the piece of your massive headache of a puzzle that you called to get from me.

I have never seen Balalaika as absolutely fucking happy as when we hauled that woman out of the water. "That bastard," she kept saying with some freaky kind of smile lighting up her face. "That bastard."

I trust you know what to do with that tidbit.

Oh, and Rock? This little tale stays between us. If that last part gets out, she will be the death of me, but not before I make sure you're paying the fare on Charon's boat first.

See you around.

* * *

_A/N: Hip hip hooray for the dubbed OVAs! Inspiration! Rejoicing!_


End file.
